There was suppossed to be alot of competing voices, from military and industry and the starfighter advocates never got their way. Sure they were allowed to do research that was very promising but sometimes the best choice is not made and this was the Empires problem. With the losses the Imps took at the hands of shielded rebel fighters a simple cost/benfit analysis would show it was worth making the more expensive craft that could kill more craft before it was destroyed itself was surely a better way to go. I read the Empire did not like its starfighters to have hyperdrives because they wanted to reinforce the pilots dependence upon its carrier ship and higher authority. They were obsessed with stupid crap like that. If you read about the Skipray, they were very effective and Commanders loved them. There was calls to replace all starfighters with skiprays (albeit less of them) due to their speed, firepower and survivability but the Navy would never go for the starfighter/capital hybrid even if it was advantageous. The Empire was also corrupt and decisions were made that at times benefitted people not the cause and this screwed them. Gunboats were widespread but in limited numbers and used in specific missions. Another part of the Empires problem was that they were very reluctant to create ships to react to the apparent strengths of the rebels as this proved they were worried by them. The Lancer, the Interceptor and the ISD2 are the only ships they produced to specifically counter rebel designs.

Also, now that we have seen what Petro intends to do with the patch I want to say that I am very underwhelmed. The TIE defenders speed actually reduced!? The Crusader IMPROVED!? Skiprays improved and their price reduced!? ZC space stations improved (plasma cooldown reduced by 20 secs)!? We better start a thread for 1.07 suggestions now!

I am curious what people are changing in their own mods to make things balanced? I have increased mass driver inaccuracy for fighters and bombers from 45/40% to 75/70 respectively (petro did the same). I also reduced damage from 10 to 5 after all the Vengeance fires a 8 shot burst from each mass driver!

I increased the Interceptors damage from 3 to 5.

I reduced the StarVipers shields from 50 to 25 (same as petro) and kept the hull at 75, decreased dam to 5 and speed to 5.5 (same as Interceptor).

The defenders burst rate from 2 to 4.

This made the sides alot more balanced. ZC is not as insanely tough but when you play as them you still own both other factions fairly easily. Its a little more challenging now.

I made some other changes that werent necessary but balance is still fine: I made the Bwing alot tougher in shielding (40) and hull (180) and increased its price, made defenders alot faster (max speed 7.5) and reduced shield penalty for power to weapons. I kept its total health roughly the same but increased its shields and refresh rate while lowering its hull and increasing its cost to 1000. The skiprays I increased their shields and health , reduced their squad size to 2 and increased their cost slightly.